The flag in question was won in 1968, when Longwarry was known as the Blues and was a powerful member of the West Gippsland league.

On that day, Peter Knights, who went on to become a champion at Hawthorn, was among the star performers at the age of 16.

Longwarry reached the decider again in 1969 but lost the game. It has not made a senior grand final since.

This season, however, the club that is now nicknamed the Crows is mounting a strong push to break its premiership drought.

Advertisement

One key factor that has aided Longwarry's surge is the decision to split the Ellinbank and District league into two competitions. Whereas in previous seasons the Crows were competing with 14 other clubs for success, they are now in an eight-team 'East' division.

A solid recruiting campaign, led by senior coach Dean Rice (the 1995 Carlton premiership player), is another factor in the Crows' rise. And Rice's men certainly made their opponents sit up and take notice when they demolished the previously unbeaten Warragul Industrials by 55 points last weekend.

Six rounds into the season, Longwarry is second on the ladder with a 5-1 record and its passionate backers are starting to dream big.

"We're a long way from winning a flag, but knocking off the top side was very positive for us," Crows president Terry Sarong said. "The boys have got the belief that they're right up there."

Longwarry has endured plenty of tough times since those heady days in the late 1960s. It spent most of the '70s and '80s near the bottom of the West Gippsland league ladder, struggling to compete with powerful foes like Packenham and Garfield.

But after Longwarry moved to the Ellinbank and District league in 1993, in the process swapping its navy blue jumpers with a white V for a version of the Adelaide strip, things began to turn around.

By the mid-2000s, when van der Heyden became the club's first female president, the Crows were a force to be reckoned with.

Their senior side made the finals in each of the six seasons that van der Heyden headed the committee. But although the reserves broke through and won a couple of premierships in that time, the seniors kept falling short of the grand final.

Two preliminary final appearances, which they lost to Bunyip and Catani by a total of 28 points, were their best efforts.

After van der Heyden and Sarong, who was vice-president during those years, stepped away from the day-to-day running of the club, things went awry.

"I had a little rest for three years, and unfortunately Terry and a couple of others did too, and the club fell apart," van der Heyden said.

In 2012, Longwarry's senior team didn't win a game. By the end of the season, the Crows were deep in debt and struggling retain enough players to be viable.

"We were in the shit big-time," Sarong said.

It was then that Sarong decided to step back into the fray as president, with van der Heyden joining him as secretary. They immediately set about restructuring the club, with a particular focus on raising money and finding a good coach.

The signing of Rice, who is AFL Victoria's development manager in the Yarra Valley, gave the Crows a much-needed drawcard, and Longwarry's seniors improved markedly last season, winning seven games.

That led to another influx of players over the summer, and now both the seniors and reserves find themselves sitting second on the ladder.

"Our seconds coach was shattered last year," Sarong said. "It was such an effort to find players. He wasn't going to take it on again, but he did and he's loving it.

"The seniors had Tuesday night off because of the interleague bye, but Glen wanted the seconds boys to train because they lost on the weekend. And around 20 of them turned up on the track.

"We've got no shortage of players that want to play for us at the moment. It's unbelievable."

The buzz around the club means the small and much-admired group of women – all aged 70-plus – who prepare the Thursday night dinners at the clubrooms have been busier than ever in recent weeks.

And like the rest of the people that have stuck by Longwarry through its ups and downs, they would love nothing more than a long overdue premiership as reward for their loyalty.

"Everyone's happy," Sarong said. "I like to see smiles on the players' faces and the supporters' faces. That's what it's all about.